The Daily News. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1916.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 February 1916, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1916.

THE EMPIRE OF FRIGHTFULNESS. The origin of the war has f o:* the moment passed beyond the region of controversy. In five years' time ''new truths" will be revisiting the scene of "ancient error" and finding—in half-hurst sheik, a rifle in a ditch, an exploded bomb, a skeleton worn white and far too "naked to be ashamed" —evidence of the courage and madness of men. Now, if there be anything true in this world, it is that Germany lias changed her ideals, in part throug'h failures, hi part through victory, and that the new plan which is preached by all the Germanic-influenced Powers—from Berlin to Constantinople —will make the world infinitely loss a place worth living in than, the old. At first, with the sense of triumph like the unsheathing of a great sword, hrr plan was to fall on Russia and Trance, drive, the former back into her northern forests from which she could never emerge for a century, and break the spirit of the latter. The plan failed for two reasons: The French, after nearly fulfilling the German prophecy as to the weakness of a Latin democracy, suddenly exhibited the power of cold, heroic fury —animated by the knowledge that they were fighting ''the last of all," and hurled the Germans back into entrenchments from which they have never again emerged. And the Russians, entirely care-less—-as a hundred years ago—that they were making their most prosperous provinces desert, retired with the line bending always, but. never breaking, with the advancing Germans embogged in a sea of mud and wreckage and burnt villages and towns. The "lunge" to the east and west had failed. And now the ideal of the nine of ten men who control the feeble, voiceless millions of Germany is evident. If Wiey cannot build up a "vcat empire from East to West, they will build it from Xorth to South. They will straggle over Europe and half Asia irresistible, unconquerable, with an empire so deliberately built on '■'{rightfulness" that among all the lesser nations "terror will be the order of the diy." Commercial and military unity on a gigantic scale will replace the little liny pieces of disputed territories over which Europe has hitherto quarrelled. Their terms (allowing for the haggling of tlie market) may be nearly the same as those which some of our own peace lovers (not realising their ultimate meaning) arc prepared to offer. They may, perhaps, give back Belgium an autonomy (with economic and political guarantees) to secure peace with England. They may even contrive a method by which all the belligerents will contribute (even neutrals such as America) to the rebuiklina of that "martyr nation." They will evacuate the trampled territories of Fiance. Tliaj- b»jt jvgg toy jo Itir,

;l- a (litre tif lllelll. ill !l litlj.'. SOINC i"rag intiil u l-'iuiic: - J-urruiiii-' of Aisae«

"J'l'i-y will be <arcless as to ilieir own colonic-, (which never paid them), and of inquiring our-, if imr Vied remains iriiHiiphiim. for live years or lifteen, WI..U we s-1.i.1l i-ee is a Germanic Slate, niitd from Berlin to 1 inpdad, with iU place in il:e sun, ii-i Zollvurein, and its power of obtaining further possessions, not by foni|tiost but merely by the stamp of il,e mailed booi. Austria and Hungary will have all the internal riahts of pio.-<.euiiii!; the Slav beneath them which they now posses-:. Bulgaria will be but another Bavaria, with a king, an orthodox religion, schools in its own tongue, Ministers for town-planning on the model of Dttsseldorf, or for t'he development of a, branch of Krupps, as at Essen. Turkey will be but a protectorate with unlimited masques and dervishes, and only German officers controlling the army, and German engineers the hrigation of the deserts. The Turks will be sleeping as they love in the sunlight, or enrolled in the armies, and perhaps German skilled immigrants who grunt and sweat under a weary life in the great German cities will replace the million Armenians who have been exterminated since last April. One can imagine a successful, efficient State, "Kultur" curried to the East and triumphant, while all of Europe which is not included in this huge empire is silent, or broken, nr going very softly all its days. For it is an Empire bu'lt deliberately on fi'ightfulnesr. living on the reputation of its past frightftilness, in historic words, the negation of God turned into a system of Government. We can already sec the beginning of it: Holland lying awake in terror, and prosecuting Engi lishinen and Dutchmen who have said anything to injure her strict neutrality; I Denmark—oo per cent. pro-Ally—afraid to move or issue pro-Ally literature lest she be destroyed; Bulgaria coming into the war deliberately against the wWlm* ol the people, because with the An=trnGrmanie armies hammering almost at the gates, as Ferdinand naively remarked, he must throw in his lot with the winning side; Greece paralysed like a scared rabbit. And it will he an empire defended by in which the touching of a button in Berlin will let loose hordes of trained Turks. Huncuriam and Prussians on any little nation wbidi desires to think, or claims a right to have a voice in its own affairs. | Rotterdam, and perhaps Antwerp, will go the way of Brussels and Lille. France with this final efl'ert of self-preservation | failing, will be broken in spirit; and a France broken in spirit is a France destroyed. England may carry on for a time with an enormous debt, with a hundred million Navy Estimate and a hundred mil'iop Amy; bu"; all the best of her. under such circumstance::, will pass to lands beyond the sea. And an to t'.ll others—ltaly, Sweden, Ror.raania, Denmark—it will only bo Jieces=?ry ti set up sign marks at the frontiers. "Tiemember Belsirm. 1014," to bring them humbly to their knees. Pilch, savs :i writer in The Nation, is fflie v'n'nvi of spiritual d n ath for Europe which, nothing can break but the resolution of the Allies. It can be broken on the Danube. Tt ean be broken by t'ip freeing of the Italians aiv' Slavs of Austroflungary. It ejn be broken hr Wie defeat of PrnsMe and tie surrender of her stolen ierritorie". It can be broken by the rrv'wil of the B»lknn Pvi.icinalitles and th? teir'ng up of Turkey-in /m a B Tirkey-in-rirnpe has been torn r.p. And !f fhis corsnTim[\tic:i. or the essence of it. is attained, ivo fun at least remove fin "Tir.nnph of from our children':; sirrv hocks, and shew them tlu-.t God indeed e.nd not the Devil rules the world.